Generally, in a vehicle having an engine loaded in a front area thereof, a cooling module such as a radiator or a condenser for heat exchanging cooling water or coolant of an air conditioner is installed in a front area of a vehicle body; a front end module is employed to parts such as cooling modules, head lamps, a bumper and so on to reduce man hour and number of parts. The carrier for a front end module includes, as shown in FIG. 1, a carrier 10, a condenser 42 mounted on the center of the carrier, radiator 44 and a cooling module 40, having a fan shroud assembly 46, head lamps 50 installed at both sides of an upper portion of the carrier 10, and a bumper (not shown) installed by a bumper beam 60 at a front side of a lower end portion of the carrier 10.
The carrier 10, as shown in FIG. 2, is provided with an upper panel 20, a lower panel 22 arranged parallel to the upper panel 20 and two side panels 24 for connecting both sides of central portions of the upper and lower panels respectively so as to form a generally rectangular part for mounting the cooling module at a central portion of the carrier 10. Further, a pair of head lamp mounting part 32 is formed for mounting the head lamps 50 respectively across from both end portions of the upper panel 20 to the both side panels 24 and bumper mounting parts 34 are formed for mounting the bumper beam 60 at a portion of each side panel 24 which is located at a lower side of the head lamp mounting part 32, respectively.
In addition, a center stay 26 for connecting central portions of the upper and lower panels 20 and 22 may be applied for the purpose of reinforcing the carrier 10 constructed as above mentioned while installing a hood latch assembly 70.
Recently used is a hybrid carrier constructed with metal and synthetic resins together, which can be relatively easily manufactured in an integral structure as shown in FIG. 2 by arranging into a mold an upper metal member 20a for reinforcing an upper end of the hybrid carrier, a lower metal member 22a for reinforcing a lower end of the hybrid carrier and two side metal members 34a for reinforcing both sides of the hybrid carrier, each shown in. FIG. 3, and performing insert injection molding with synthetic resins.
There are, however, following problems in the above mentioned conventional carrier.
Since the upper metal member 20a, as shown in FIG. 4, generally has a structure of a rearwardly opened channel type, there is a problem that rigidity is insufficient for supporting the cooling module 40.
In addition, poor appearance may be generated as appearance or size of the molded product does not fit due to a complicated shape and the mold should be modified if the appearance or the size of the molded product does not fit.
In addition, if the center stay 26 for assembling the hood latch assembly 70 is applied, there is a problem that the center stay 26 blocks a central portion of the cooling module mounting part 30 and thus it leads to a poor breathablity of the cooling module 40.
There is another problem that the hybrid carrier is formed in an integral structure by the insert injection molding and thus it is inconvenient to construct or maintain the cooling module 40 mounted in the cooling module mounting part 30 since space of an engine room is small.